Basic Gear Redesign

After finishing the TM Publishing logos I was ready for a breather, however fate had a different plan for me. My new client Dave stumbled upon my blog while looking for someone to redesign his current logo.

Dave is a one-man show living in the Netherlands who sells outdoor gear. So far he has outfitted expeditions to Mount Blanc, Kilimanjaro, and the North Pole.

Dave told me he wanted to keep the landscape concept and if I wanted to I could explore wild animal logo concepts. I began sketching and I realized how difficult this was (is). I need to make a logo appealing to an audience that is made up of mostly 20-45 year old men, who are tough, and survive in the wild.

Here are some sketches that I came up with and sent my client this evening. I would love any feedback from you.

Crimson Fog

I am excited to say that this is the final imprint logo for TM Publishing called Crimson Fog. This logo is for the genre mystery and thriller publications. This logo went through many variations before coming to the final that you see above. 

I researched all sorts of things from fog to blood splatters. Here are some images that inspired me:

Then I went to my sketchbook and drew a lot and here are the few that I sent to my client:

From my previous logos I felt that it was appropriate to go with something literal for the logo with some concept thrown in. My client liked B the best and felt that A and E were too dark for their liking. From their feedback, I made these more refined sketches:

My client liked the bottom cloud the best and felt that inorder to be a fog it needs some context. So for the mystery element, I decided to add a detective into the scene.

 My client liked B and D, however they didn't want the gender of the detective to be apparent, so I tweaked the figure by lengthening the trench coat and lowering the heels. After a few revisions, the cloud was taken out of the logo because of it's complexity. I looked up how I could make the figure appear to be in a fog. I found that fog is the absence of (in this case) a figure. I applied a gradient to the figure to make her/him appear to be in a fog.

Amber Ocean

This is the 4th out of 5 imprint logos for TM Publishing called Amber Ocean. This logo is for children's books so when I was researching I looked up the top 10 logos for kids and they were very colorful, playful, sometimes hand-drawn and just plain fun. 

After researching those logos, I searched to see what logos were out there already with wave or ocean theme. Below are the top three that I was influenced by. 

Again, I had to be literal about the ocean, but I noticed that the waves resemble book pages in a way. Below are my sketches I came up with. A, B, and D are pretty literal waves, while C, E, and F resemble pages in a book turning.

My client liked D the best and one the first round (a miracle) he liked it. All I had to do was tweak some more to refine the smooth edges and I was finished.

Burgundy Grove

Burgundy Grove is my 3rd out of 5 logos I am working on for TM Publishing. This branch is the Literary and Contemporary genre. (Emily Dickinson to the new American Dervish novel) My client wanted a pretty literal representation of their imprint brand.

In my sketch phase I wanted to have a visual metaphor of poetry represented in the trees. I wanted the trunk to be fluid and elegant. I also played with the style of leaves including blocked shape, variety in line width and individual leaves. I presented the following sketches to my client.

The client liked the 2nd one down on the left the best, because the trees where becoming one, he also likes the leaves on the top right tree and finally the trunk on the 2nd down to the right. I went back to the sketch book and came up with the following drawing (one of many) and my client liked it.

I then brought the following drawings into the computer and cleaned them up in Illustrator.

In all of these trees I wanted to portray grace and elegance as well as exploring different leafy top options. My client liked "A" the best and I refined the symbol further and added color. From my previous comp I fixed the line width of the trees leaves to flow better. I also condensed the trunks to become more of a solid shape as well as thickening the braches so you can see it when printed small on a book spine. 

Emerald sky logo

Here is the beginning exploratory phase of the Emerald Sky logo. Since this publishing company specializes in Sci Fi and Fantasy, I had fun playing with the idea of spaceships and celestial forms. I thought about sketching griffins and pegasus', however that wouldn't work with the other 4 logos, because they are literal descriptions of the name of the company. 

 The comet was the best pick for the client and I am glad she did. I feel that the comet best includes both the sky and the emerald. Here I got to play with comet tails and figure out what the rock would look like. The client picked C with the rock in A. When I was finalizing the logo, I realized that the trail was too straight, plus the positive space wasn't working for me. So I changed it to be more dynamic and more like a comet orbiting an unseen mass.

Azure Valley Publishing

Hello All!

I have been commissioned to design 5 logos for a publishing company called TM Publishing. They have different category publishing names,, since they publish a wide variety of genres.
They are called:
Azure Valley: Fiction
Emerald Sky: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Burgundy Rain: Literacy
Amber Rain: Children's books
Crimson Fog: Mystery

I just finished the sketches and sent them off to the client. This what I told them.

A1. This one I am most excited about. I know that you do a lot of digital publishing and I wanted to take on the idea of a pop-up to compliment the interactivity you have with digital books. With this logo it can be modern with the sample of the origami or the multicolor. Clean crisp lines will make it pop as well as adding color. This also has potential for innovative business cards that have a simple pop-up in it and your clients will remember it. 

A2. Is also made for an origami style. I like the abstract of this logo a lot. It is made to be in the process of folding into a mountain (interactivity of origami), so the bottom half folds up. 

B1. This logo plays off of A1, where it is a silhouette of a pop-up mountain coming out of a book that creates a valley. We can play with the highlights in this logo and make interesting white shapes.

B2. Is similar to B1, however this one won't have any white shapes. We can really play with the shape of the mountain more and how the book opens.  This one is meant to be simple to fit with the modern look. (modern has 2 extremes one with gradients and one with simple shapes.)

C1. This mountain has potential to be either origami or just flat colors. I like that the mountain is coming out toward the viewer, so it has a 3D feel to it. 

C2. Is another one I like a lot. I like the idea of using 3 different sized triangles that actually create valleys within the logo itself. Again this can be either origami or flat color. 

TM Publishing logo

These past 2 weeks I have been working on a new logo for the traditional and digital publishing house TM Publishing. These are the concepts I have submitted to the art director and I am currently waiting to hear back. The company wants a simple, progressive looking logo. If you ask me, that is quite vague. However, I did my best to figure out what exactly they want by playing 20 (10) questions. From there, I was able to get a more concrete idea of what they wanted. The owner said he liked the flag designs in the movie Kagemusha. He liked the simplicity and it described what they stand for and believe in. 

Now let's talk about my logo ideas:

1 A is an abstract of a book mixed with the feel of progression (arrows). 

1 B is with out the spine of the book to make the arrow more abstract. 

2 This logo is playing with the idea of a traditional book moving forward into digital copy.

3 A This is again playing with the idea of a digital book. Digital is something you can see but not really touch (similar to an illusion.) I also like how it switches view (one with the text at the bottom and one with the text on the outside).

3 B  is a simplified version of 3 A, referring to digital as well as to print.  I used the two key stokes [ ] and added lines for the text. Although, I worry about it being too simple.

I would love to hear any comments from you!